SALT LAKE CITY — Fire dangers will stay high, especially since July’s rainfall in northern Utah is 20% of normal. And things aren’t looking up.
Southern Utah’s monsoons have atypically stayed there this summer.
“In a lot of the summers, we get our precipitation when the monsoon surge gets up here,” said National Weather Service Meteorologist Christine Kruse.
“But the way the high pressure systems have set up this year have kept drier air over northern Utah.”
Kruse says Zion National Park got an unusually high 3.3″ of rain in June, 150% of normal, leading to flash floods.
She pointed to weather mapping software for her numbers.
Kruse outlined the precipitation odds for northern Utah for August as 41% for above normal, 33% near normal, and 26% below normal.
In June, the Wasatch Front was the sixth driest and the northern mountains were the 12th driest since record keeping began in 1895.